Brooks Woodland

Brooks has more than 13 miles of trail accessible from different street locations throughout the town of Petersham. Once home to Nipmuc Indians, then cleared for open pastureland, the Brooks Woodland Preserve is now largely covered by a forest of towering red oaks, hemlocks, and white pine. Old stone walls, reminders of former agricultural use, cross the forest floor, passing through patches of maidenhair ferns, winterberry, and partridgeberry. Six early–19th-century farmsteads can be rediscovered here.